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I want to hike through Fiordland National Park in New Zealand.

I will likely never be a rich man.  But if I were to have sufficient means, I would do this:

Find the world’s experts in every field pertaining to the humanities, from history to art to religion and so on.  I would seek those whose expertise was married to a powerful communicative skill, who could really convey their knowledge in a way that a layman like me could understand.  These would naturally be educated people in considerable demand at institutions of learning, and/or authors of books, without much free time.  So, I would need ample resources to hire them to be my tutors on a series of worldwide learning expeditions.  For instance, I would hire a geologist, a botanist and a zoologist to take me on a tour of the great national parks of the world.  I’d hire some professor from Oxford or Cambridge to take me on a tour of every historically significant place in England.  I’d go to China with a team of experts who could teach me about the people, the places and the heritage of that country.  And so on.  I’d have places I’d want to go, of course, but I’d rely on these experts to tell me the things I ought to see, because–and this is true of all of us–I don’t know what I don’t know.

I thought of this just a few minutes ago as I was watching a new PBS series called The Story of India, hosted by Michael Wood, whom I remember from another excellent series, In Search of Shakespeare.  He doesn’t present himself as an expert.  Rather, he’s merely an intellectually curious man who gathers information about the world around him, and regurgitates it in a way that lazy slobs like me can understand.  In The Story of India he travels the country, focusing on some important topic (Buddhism in the episode I just saw), and visits sites important to the subject, talks to people who know about it (the Dalai Lama, for instance!) and relays this learning to us in a way that makes sense and is entertaining.  It’s edutainment.

So, wouldn’t you love to tour Luxor or Giza with an Egyptologist?  Or walk the halls of the great art museums with an art historian and a curator.  Music is my forte (rim shot), but I’d still find it immensely rewarding to attend an orchestra season in New York with a musicologist from Julliard.

There’s a lot a man can learn from books.  But staring agog at the Colosseum with a guide book in your hand cannot compare to having an archaeologist, an architect and an historian take you on a little walk.

That’s what I’d do with my money.  That and a solid gold house.

I recognize that 2008 was, for many, a bad year.  The worst economy in generations, rising unemployment, and record prices for almost everthing stemming from gasoline that topped $4.00 a gallon made life difficult for a lot of people.  In spite of all this, 2008 was good to me.  Some highlights:

• I began classes at the University of Florida.  This is remarkable, because had I waited any longer the window would have closed on me, probably forever.  The University announced this year that they were changing their admissions policy for transfer students.  Unlike other universities in Florida, UF doesn’t have to admit students with transfer degrees from community colleges.  They can pick and choose.  And when the average GPA for entering freshmen at UF is over 4.0, there is little incentive for them to take people like me.  I got in just under the wire.  School is challenging, but rewarding.  I feel very grateful to be where I am.
• This year I became active in a roller debry league.  I am not a skater, of course, but I spent a lot of time with the girls who are skaters, and contributed to the league in my own small way.
• I did lots of traveling in 2008.  In January I spent a weekend in Daytona Beach at the wedding of my closest friends; in June I spent almost a week in Chicago, which is surely one of the world’s great cities; in early August I spent several days in Hilton Head, South Carolina, which I didn’t care much for as a place, but can now say I’ve seen; went to Savannah twice; had a great weekend in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, which is a delightful little town; had an incredibly memorable week in Washington, DC, where I saw a million amazing things.
• I made lots of new friends, and reconnected with many old friends on Facebook.  I saw Burt twice.
• I got myself an amazing Fender Telecaster, which is ideal in nearly every way.
• I continued my incredible no-vomiting streak.
• I paid off all of my credit card debt.
• I watched lots of Olympics on TV.
• I became the last person I know to buy a laptop computer, and it’s changed my life.
• I discovered Samuel Johnson, which also changed my life.
• I had several photographs published in books, magazines, and even the website of the Wall Street Journal.
• I ate an astonishing amount of Hungry Howie’s pizza.
• I perfected the grilled cheese sandwich (the secret ingredient is salt).
• I read: Emma; Persuasion; Oroonoko; Wuthering Heights; Lady Audley’s Secret; Evelina; Robinson Crusoe; Roxana; Oliver Twist; The Monk; Clarissa; Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and tons of poetry.
• I saw Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band in concert; they played “Jungleland”.

So long, 2008.  You were good to me.  As I do every year, I close with the Stephen Foster sentiment that has become my credo: Hard Times Come Again No More.

Christmas 2008 has come and gone, and I am back home in Gainesville after three days and more than 500 miles on the highway.  On the Turnpike this afternoon, an accident on the southbound lanes caused a tremendous backup in the northbound lanes, and more than five miles (I counted) of bumper-to-bumper traffic for the southbound travelers.

Christmas Eve was spent in St. Petersburg at Grandma’s house.  She was at church when I arrived, but had made dinner and left it on the counter.  Plus, there were brownies.  When she got home we watched It’s a Wonderful Life.  On Christmas Day we went over to Julie’s.  It was a great time.  I gave Miriam some aluminum plates for her skates.  I gave my dad a book of selected essays of Samuel Johnson, a book which has changed my life.  Grandma gave me a book of photos of me as a child.  Julie gave me a neat personalized stone for the garden.  Miriam gave me the DVD of La fanciulla del West I’ve wanted for a long time with Sherrill Milnes as Jack Rance, and the Penguin Classics edition of Dumas’ Count of Monte Christo I’ve been itching to read.

To enter the Washington Monument you must have a ticket.  Tickets are free, and distributed on a first come, first served basis, so, you might arrive at ten o’clock in the morning and find the only tickets left are for two o’clock in the afternoon.  This means that instead of following the schedule you had originally designed for yourself that would involve the Bureau of Printing and Engraving, the FDR Memorial and the National Gallery of Art, you instead see the National Archives and the Jefferson Memorial and call it a day.

First things first: the Washington Monument is an amazing structure when you consider how old it is.  It’s like a 50 story skyscraper built of stone blocks, with no steel to reinforce anything.  Inside, it’s clear that gravity holds this thing together.  The security procedure was, again, rigorous, and that alone must sharply reduce the number of visitors that can be accommodated daily.  The elevator takes you to a landing at the very top of the obelisk, and the mark on the floor indicates a height of 500 feet.  There are two small windows on each face of the pyramidal section of the monument, and depending on which direction you face you see either the WWII Memorial, Lincoln Memorial and Arlington, Virginia; the Capitol and RFK Stadium; the Jefferson Memorial and Reagan National Airport; or the Elipse and the White House.

The Jefferson Memorial requires a hike, but is well worth it.  I love classically inspired architecture, and this structure has about as many columns, steps and pediments as you could fit into a respectable design.  Plus, inside there’s a great big statue.

The National Archives is not far from the Smithsonian Museums, and is a handsome building in its own rights, with a fine dome.  Beneath that dome, of course, are our nation’s most precious possessions: the original Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights.  You know you’ve got some good stuff on display when you decide to keep the Magna Carta off in a corner somewhere.  The cafeteria there was surprisingly good (and very surprisingly affordable), and the elevator was fancy.  Plus, it was at the National Archives that I saw the only authentic Lincoln document of my entire trip, a letter in his own hand.  The Library of Congress has two copies of the Gettysburg Address, and the National Archives has, I believe, the Emancipation Proclamation, but they are too delicate to display for more than a few days each year.  Still, I was glad I got to see something, at least, that bore Lincoln’s own signature.

Time didn’t allow a visit to the National Gallery of Art, alas, but I did go through the sculpture garden.  Most everything in it sucked big time.  But they did have a Calder stabile, so that was nice.  One evening I took the Metro to the Dupont Circle stop and visited the Phillips Collection.  It’s an art museum in an old mansion in a neighborhood that now houses many of the international embassies.  I am very glad that admission was free, because I really only was interested in seeing one thing there.  I made a pretty weak attempt to imitate a painting, too.

So, I missed the National Cathedral, Cedar Hill, the Bureau of Printing and Engraving and the FDR Memorial.  The National Museum of American History and Ford’s Theater were closed, and my White House tour didn’t come through.  But I’ll go back someday.  Huzzah!